R.E.M. - Reveal
(Warner Bros.)

When you're the best American rock and roll band of the last 20 years, there isn't a whole lot left to prove. Are we left, at this point, to simply smile and nod along with the tunes while admiring the obvious craftsmanship? ugh. No, no. Hey, the production is always top-notch. The arrangements are always appropriate. The melodies and hooks are thick, and Michael Stipe remains one of the smartest singers on the planet. The packaging is, well, nice. But what keeps Reveal, the latest new-era R.E.M. album, from veering off into the safe land of contented, plain, boring adult album pop is, largely, the same brand of R.E.M. brilliance and charm that has carried them their entire career, but particularly in the second half thereof, from 1991's Out Of Time onward.

So it's another dozen songs added to the R.E.M. repertoire, and none of them suck. "Imitation Of Life" is a perfect upbeat pop single a la "Man On The Moon" or "The Great Beyond" but even more replete with harmonica and a sweet beepy electronic middle bit. Would've been an easy top 5 Billboard single if it had come out in the right decade; it's unclear whether the right decade has passed or its yet to come.

Lead track "The Lifting" is cast from the same sturdy mold, exploding midway through with the sort of melodic flourish that just doesn't occur by accident. "All The Way To Reno" is top-notch dreamy midtempo balladry, "I'll Take The Rain" is first-rate slightly-slower-than-midtempo balldray, and "Chorus And The Ring" is, uh, hey, more top-notch reamy midtempo balladry, albeit with a main guitar riff brilliantly lifted wholesale from Bowie's "It Ain't Easy."

Okay, so they do a lot of slow ones these days. But the pieces all stand on their own merits, and they fit together more or less effortlessly. This isn't the sort of album whose spine will jump out at you as you browse the CDs on your shelf, but like their last album, 1998's Up, it is an R.E.M. album that should stand the test of time and emotions and provide some deceptively unsimple pleasure each rare time it is spun.

YEAH YEAH YEAH, 2001